


What She Wants

by Linenpixel



Series: Prism Arc [2]
Category: Invisible Inc. (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Dystopia, F/M, Microaggressions, Misogyny, Swearing, misogynoir
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-10 02:55:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11682555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linenpixel/pseuds/Linenpixel
Summary: It's 2071, and Prism has been through so much. Fortunately, Kieran, who has been thinking a lot about Olivia Gladstone, is here to help.





	What She Wants

London, 2071

* * *

 

“Prism…” I say. She looks up.

I call her Prism, because that’s what she wants. I don’t understand it, but I respect it.

She’s told me that it’s not that she dislikes the name “Esther”, but that “Prism” is simply _who she is_. And I don’t understand that. I could understand if she’d chosen a new name for herself, but Prism was her stage name. I don’t know why she’d still want to _be_ that. The persona. The product. The name, the image, that’s the embodiment of… well, everything. Of how they used her. Which, fuck it, I couldn’t see at the time, but can see now.

“Kieran?” she says, bringing me back. To the grim reality, which is actually a well-lit spacious luxury apartment overlooking the Thames.

“Are you doing okay?” I blurt out. 

She raises an eyebrow. “What do you think?”

She’s wearing her pyjamas and lying on the sofa. She gestures vaguely at the room, at the view, at everything — the glass doors, the glass balcony, the city being spectacularly drizzly outside. On the opposite bank, more glassy and abstract buildings fade into the greyness. London had a lot more of its old buildings left after the Resource Wars than most cities, but almost everything along the river is new builds.

The room is fairly neat, but there’s a pile of half-folded laundry on the floor that was here the last time I came, two weeks ago. It wasn't there the time before, but that was almost six weeks prior. I’ve been trying to visit her as often as possible, but my schedule gets in the way. Though Holovid has not been giving me any extra difficulties, and I know perfectly well they could have been.

That may be about to change. I’m fully aware. Eyes open.

It’s been just over six months since _The Istanbul Four_ came out, and I’m not even sure I’m the same person now as I was then.

I asked her if she was doing okay. What a silly question. But… I’m not sure how to bring up the real reason I’m here…

My eyes stray to the large gym bag I’ve brought with me, but she doesn’t notice. She didn’t comment on it when I came in, even though it’s not something I usually carry. 

But she looks healthy, and I know she’s been keeping up with her workouts. There’s a gym in the building. She’s allowed free rein of the building… which in practice means her apartment and the gym, since she has laundry in-unit and there are no other communal spaces. She can’t go outside. Holovid doesn’t actually have any kind of monitor on her — not on her body — but we both know perfectly well that they’d find out. 

She usually uses the gym late at night, though she’s told me she hasn’t had any problems with the other people in the building. None of them have recognized her. She says that it’s not exactly like acting, but if you don’t walk like a star it never occurs to people to recognize you. And while of course the corps put aside petty embargoes where the entertainment industry is concerned — well, mostly — most of her films were never as popular in Europe as in the FTM zone. And it doesn’t hurt that in her most famous role she was… well, maybe I won’t bring that up.

But I have to… have to bring up something close to it, at least…

No, there's no way I can avoid it…

And I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t think it would make her happy. If I didn’t think it was what she wants.

“I have enough money for four years,” she says, interrupting my thoughts. “I’ve worked it out. Of course, that was allowing for my current food expenses, and I could spend a lot less, but… what’s the fucking point?”

She gestures vaguely at the containers from the Thai we had for lunch. Delivered to the balcony by drone, of course. 

She has no trouble getting everything she needs here. 

“If I really fucking saved I could get maybe one more month’s rent out of it before I have to go back and beg them. Which I know is what they want. They have it all planned out, I know they do.”

“I… yes.” There’s no point in denying it.

Of course the amount they’ve given her is more than a lot of people see in their lifetimes, but she didn’t get to choose her own apartment.

They’ve effectively imprisoned her, and they don’t even have the decency to…

Steady, I tell myself. Don’t expect the word _decency_ to apply here.

I make a decision. Now or never.

“Prism, I’ve got something for you.” I drag the gym bag towards me. I fumble with the zipper. I look up at her face and see her smiling.

And I get the bag open and pull out a holorig.

Rather awkwardly, as a wide belt that manages to be floppy and remarkably heavy at the same time — it’s the tech and the insulation — is not the easiest thing to pull out of a bag. But she recognizes it as soon as she sees one end of it.

“Kieran…”

“I got this smuggled out for you,” I say, looking back at her face as soon I don’t need to focus all my attention on the damn bag. “It’s not the same one you used when you were filming, the one with all the modifications, but it’s the newest standard model. They've made some improvements, even in the last six months…"

“Why?”

Her voice is flat. But I’m sure I see a light in her eyes.

“I… I’ve made some contacts. I’ve been doing some reading.” There is so much to explain, so much I want to get out all at once. Okay, Kieran, stick to the plan. I want to scope out how she feels about the holorig first. About using it again.

“It was you who started me on this, Prism. You and… your role. I have you to thank for that.”

She wrinkles her forehead.

“You’ve changed my life. Or at least, my life has changed. It all started — for me — when I started researching Olivia Gladstone.”

“Oh. Well, there’s a lot that’s not too hard to find.”

“Incidentally, I can’t believe I didn’t notice this before, but her portrayal in _The Istanbul Four_ was neither ideologically coherent across the whole film nor bore much resemblance to who she actually was.” I sigh. “Well, except for the bits that did. It’s complicated. They are clever, I’ll give them that.”

She looks at me dubiously, but I go on. “But the really interesting thing is that there’s a whole lot that they could have used but didn’t. The PEIA did some awful shit. Not just during the war.”

“I know.”

“But researching her led me to other things, and—”

“Why?” she bursts out, sitting fully upright for the first time. “Why put yourself at risk like this? They’ll find out this thing is missing, you know they will. And you’ve put me at risk too. Do you seriously think they won’t trace this to me? And they probably can’t do anything worse to me — well, of course they _can_ , but they probably _won’t_ , but—“

I hold out my hands. “I can explain. And first of all, yes, I am taking a risk. But I’ve accepted that. I’m willing to take it.” I look directly into her eyes. “And also I think there’s a reasonably good chance that I won’t lose my career over this. Because unlike what… happened with you, there’s no reason for this to ever get out of the corp.”

“Okay. What exactly are you talking about?”

“Prism, I did this for you. Because of… what I saw in you. Your performance…” 

I start again. “Prism, you were amazing as Olivia. You were awesome. You said so yourself. You were really… channelling something there …”

She’s looking at me as though I have two heads.

“I… thought that you could find some strength from that, now,” I finish.

“Kieran… Kieran…” She’s standing up now. “Kieran, Olivia Gladstone is not in this room!”

“I know that—”

“She’s not here, so I don’t care what she might have done if she was here, what she might have said, what she thought about anything, or how hot you think she looked.”

“Prism, I’ve never said—”

“She’s irrelevant, she’s not me, and I don’t give a fuck where she is or isn’t now, including in Hell.”

It surprises me, that anger. Her anger. But I know I need to understand it. It’s not the first time I’ve been surprised by it. I remind myself that she has been through a lot. And I’m not sure if she’s really talking to me now, or herself.

Also she’s started crying. It suddenly occurs to me that I may have fucked this up quite spectacularly. 

But — okay. It’s a quarter to four. I still have over an hour. I can afford to spend some time getting her calmed down.

I can see the clock on the microwave from here. Looking at my phone right now might seem tactless. 

I can see the clocks on the coffee machine, the water filter, the kitchen bin and the pepper mill too, actually.

She’s sitting on the sofa again, her head in her hands. 

Quietly, I hand her the box of tissues.

“Prism, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought her up.”

She looks up at me blearily, then sighs. “We can’t avoid it forever.”

I nod, hoping that’s adequate.

She blows her nose, uses a few more tissues on her face. When she looks up and speaks again her voice is much steadier. “Just to be clear, I’m not _jealous_ of her. That thing I said back there... sounded weird, I realize that now. It’s not that at all.” She laughs, a sound like clear crystal falling onto the floor and smashing. “That’s not what I meant, not what I really meant…”

“It’s okay,” I say.

“No, Kieran, it’s not, but we aren’t going to get anywhere following this line of conversation. And I know you have something else to tell me. It’s not just the holorig. I can tell.”

Yeah. She does that. I’ve joked a few times about her having some kind of telepathic augment, even though we both know those don’t exist.

Probably. You never know with Plastech.

But anyway…

“Yes, there is something else, and, it's, well — would you like some tea?”

She laughs, and it sounds genuine now. Normal. “Kieran, you can’t Scottish your way out of this one. But I wouldn’t mind a glass of water.”

I get it for her. The water filter helpfully tells me it’s exactly 12°C. Not out loud. She shut that feature off.

And now she’s sitting there with hydration in her hands and a few tears still in her eyes and I have no choice but to get all this off my chest as quickly as possible. She deserves to know. Well, kind of urgently needs to know. I look at the clock. 3:51.

“You know how I told you I had some family members who were… radical? Very distant family members. Well, I’ve got in contact with them, and they’ve put me in contact with other people, and… well it’s a long story but it eventually led to some people putting me in touch with some other people who are actually within Holovid, who are the ones who got that holorig out to me…” I pause, breathe. “But that’s not important. What’s important is that there’s _another_ group, and they want you, Prism.”

She’s looking at me with narrowed eyes. I plunge on.

“They do… a lot of things. Sabotage. And some social infiltration. And confidence jobs. I thought this could be your opportunity — if you want it — to get back at the corps—“

“Kieran!” She interrupts me. “I don’t care how good these people are, _the corps will trace this back to you_.”

“I know that.” I look into her eyes again, willing her to see that this is all okay, that I know this. “But like I said before, I’m reasonably certain this won’t end my career. And even if it does, I don’t care. Because by the time they get here, you’ll be well out of this.”

“What?” Her voice is almost a scream.

“If you want to.” I dig desperately in my pocket, pull out a piece of paper within a plastic sandwich bag. “Here, read this. And… I don’t want anyone to hear us.”

“Really? Is that before or after FTM gets here? Or is it K&O? And one really great thing about these apartments is that they have excellent soundproofing!” But her voice actually goes quieter as she says it.

“No-one’s going to be getting here except Lowercase. At five. I’m sorry, Prism. I couldn’t tell you before. This is how they wanted me to do things.”

She leans back, breathes heavily. “Lowercase?”

“That’s the name of the group. The group that wants you. It’s on the paper. There’s some information there, for you. About who they are. And don’t get it wet. Except when you’re done, when you should flush it down the toilet. It’s dissolving paper.”

She looks at the paper, reads. And reads. I know I should let her read, but I can’t help myself. “Prism, they really are excited about you. About the prospect of you. With your skills, your dramatic training… you’d really be an asset to them.”

“Great. Do they also have goals involving synergy?”

“Um, no. Sorry.” I get her point, realize what I sounded like. Corpspeak can get in your head. “What I said wasn’t their exact words. They… I didn’t have all that much contact with them. It was risky. And… it is a risk. If you go with them, I won’t be able to contact you. After. And I’m sure you can trust them, but you would still be taking a risk, going with them.”

She stares at me, completely levelly. “Okay. Let me finish reading.”

She bends her head back to the paper. “Okay. Anarchists.”

She looks up. “Why ‘Lowercase’? Why that name? It doesn’t explain that on here, and I didn’t expect it to, it’s not important, but —” 

She takes a gulp of air, realizes she’s been rushing. “But, why?”

“Apparently it’s an in-joke among their members. I did ask them about that. They were okay with telling me that.”

“Okay.” She looks briefly back at the paper. “So what exactly is the plan? Their plan. It doesn’t say that on here.”

“Yeah. They only got the final plan to me last night. Just before my flight. They’ll be here at five."

“At five.” Her eyes go to the clock. The one on the holo-entertainment system. 3:58.

“You can say no. They’ll be here, but you can turn them down. They’ll understand. This was the only way they could do things …”

“Kieran. What. Exactly. Is. Their. Plan?”

“They’ll be here with a boat. They’re going to commandeer some rich person’s boat. Then —”

“I can see a lot of ways that could go wrong.”

I sigh. She's not wrong. “Well, um, if they get here, we’ll know it worked? It is risky, Prism, I know that. We are taking a lot of risks. Both of us. And they've got everything planned. And I know this is sudden, but it's what they told me to do. There was no way to give you more notice that wasn't a security risk.”

“Okay. How am I getting onto the boat?”

“You’ll jump off of your balcony. If you want to. You don’t have to.”

“They expect me to leap from the balcony onto a boat?”

“No, they expect you to leap into the water. You wouldn’t want to hit a boat from this height.”

Wordlessly, she puts down the paper and walks over to her balcony. Opens the door. Cool damp air streams in. No power on Earth could make a London winter not damp, including climate change on, um, Earth.

She walks out onto the balcony and looks down at the water. I follow her. Her apartment is on the fourth floor — the American meaning of _fourth floor_ , not the British — but it’s higher above the water than the number of storeys alone, because of the new embankment. Which was built in the 2030s, before I was born, but that’s new by London standards.

I follow her gaze. The water is slate grey. The sky is already getting dark. Maybe it’s because the drizzle seems to be turning into real fog.

It’s lucky her building was built to protrude over the water slightly, because otherwise this plan would have never worked. They would have had to come up with a different plan. Or maybe nothing would have worked. Anything that involves her walking on the street is… extremely dicey at best. The corps have cameras everywhere. If we could get her into a car, that might just be an option… but probably not, because the camera system has very sophisticated tracking. And is very secure.

But none of that is what’s actually happening—

“It’s almost high tide.” I can say that safely outside. No other inhabitant who might happen to be on their balcony right now is going to bat an eye at that. I know she’ll pick up on my meaning, understand that she doesn’t have to worry about the depth of the water. Understand that their plan accounted for everything.

Even though I don't know all of it. I don’t know what Lowercase has planned for after the boat. They presumably can’t be taking her far on it. Possibly their plan does involve cars at some point. And it's not like there's any shortage of cameras pointing at the Thames. But they'll have allowed for that. They'll have had to. I know the plan doesn’t involve planes or helicopters. They did tell me that. Probably safe to assume they don’t have the cloaking tech … I’m not sure anyone outside the corps does…

Prism goes back inside, having said nothing. I follow. She closes the door, securely.

When she speaks, her face is expressionless. “The plan you made — sorry, _they_ made — involves me jumping into the Thames in January?”

“They’ll get you out really quickly. And the Thames is about 10°C this time of year. Since we’re not having a cold snap. You won’t get hypothermia that quickly.” A thought occurs to me. “You can swim, can’t you?”

“Yes, but… “ She shakes her head, grits her teeth. “Kieran…”

“Sorry, but they really thought it was the safest plan. And the surest. It’s hard to get away from the corps. You of —” I cut myself short.

“I of all people should know that? That’s what you were going to say, isn’t it? And yes, I do.”

I look down. I understand her, I really do. I can guess what she must be feeling.

But all I can think of — unbidden — is how she looked when she, as Olivia Gladstone, jumped from the fifth floor of the Istanbul Hotel. How she looked in that video I recorded and that Holovid “leaked”. I asked her permission, of course. How she looked in the gym, when she was practicing for it, training for it. The grace, the raw athleticism, the lines of her body as beautiful and dynamic as a classical sculpture…

And all I can think is that everything in her life up to this point, everything she’s suffered, has been leading her to this moment. Has prepared her for it perfectly. But I can’t say that, know I shouldn’t…

“The idea — their idea — is that you’re faking your death.”

“That won’t fool the corps for a minute.”

“I know. But the idea is it gives the corps an easy out. They may be less likely to go after you if they can plausibly say …” I stop. I don’t really want to finish that sentence. “Also, Lowercase thought this was best from a purely practical point of view.”

She stares at me. 

“You don’t have to,” I repeat. “You can say no.”

“Kieran, how is this even a choice? How are you even giving me a choice? I know I said the corps probably won’t do anything worse to me, b—” She suddenly pulls herself up taller. “Okay. You said they’d be here by five?”

“Yes… you’ve got lots of time… well…”

My eyes go again to the clock. 4:01.

“Okay.” She almost runs to the bathroom. Rushes back and grabs the paper. I see her reading it again as she closes the door.

She’s in there for over five minutes, and when she comes out she goes right into the bedroom without talking to me. I wait.

For much less time than she was in the bathroom. 4:09.

She comes out wearing black leggings and a black turtleneck. She walks straight over to the closet by the apartment entrance and comes back with a knit cap — not black — it’s a kind of speckled grey and blue — I know it’s the only one she owns — and she’s never worn it outside, only on her balcony. She bundles her hair into it.

I realize it must have been pure habit that led her to keep it in the closet by the door, like someone who could actually go outside.

“No point in boots when I’ll be leaping into water,” she says. I notice she’s wearing black wool socks. “Did they expect me to bring anything else? Did they say?”

“I… didn’t ask.” Why didn’t I ask? But it’s okay. I have not screwed this up too much. And she’s… okay, steady, Kieran. Focus. She needs your answer. “They didn’t say anything. I suppose if you packed a bag and threw it into the water they could probably fish it out.”

“You know, I’m just gonna make a bet they can provide me with a toothbrush.”

“So… you’re really doing this?”

“Yes.”

For a moment we look into each other’s eyes.

“Kieran…” she begins. Then suddenly looks away, looks around the room, her eyes almost panicky. “The holorig. Where’s the holorig?”

“There,” I say, pointing at the carpet beside the sofa. “It’s okay.”

“Mustn’t forget the fucking holorig.” She hurries over to it, pulls her turtleneck up from her waist.

“There’s still plenty of time. It’s—” I check. “4:13.” 

I realize I looked at my phone even though the apartment control hub is within my line of sight.

She’s still trying to get the holorig on. She is apparently not waiting.

“Do you want some help with that?”

“Sure.” She turns her back to me and holds up her top as I position the rig around her waist and fasten it. With two people it’s easy. She’s used to having people on set to help.

She turns back to face me as she pulls the turtleneck back down. You really can’t see the holorig under it at all. They’re still heavy, but getting less bulky all the time.

She knows that you can swim in them safely. They’re heavy, but not that heavy. And they’re waterproof. Even the older models incorporated some technology first developed for recording some weird Augment Games event.

Everyone knows about using holorigs in water because of that remake of _Titanic_ that Holovid did in 2068. Which neither of us was in, but for a while there you couldn’t go on any promotional vidcast without having to talk about it anyway. Though the box-office record it set was broken by _The Istanbul Four._ Even Holovid hadn’t expected that.

Which I am not about to mention…

Prism inhales deeply, exhales, adjusts the rig around her waist slightly, then rushes off into the kitchen. She returns with a protein bar and takes a big bite of it.

“We’ve still got time.” I say. 4:15 exactly. “You can sit down. Do you want some more water?”

She shakes her head, her mouth full. Then my phone beeps.

I look at it. The screen is weird —

Prism sees something is wrong.

She’s already rushing over to me as I hold out the phone, let her read the words. The words in stark plaintext within the unfamiliar interface of the client Lowercase installed on my phone.

_They are coming. We are coming. Balcony. Now._

“This is them?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know this is secure? That the corps haven’t intercepted it?”

“I… don’t. This is the best they could do. They installed this for emergencies. We weren’t supposed to have to use it. I guess something —”

“Right. Balcony.”

She has the door open almost as she says it. I follow. She closes it behind her. And it’s all very quiet. The river is flowing gently below and the only sound is distant traffic. Suddenly it’s hard to believe that anything is urgent.

“There’s a motor yacht. Is that it?”

I look. There. It stands out a brilliant white through the thin mist, against the darkness of the river. Probably not Lowercase’s first choice. If that _is_ it… “I don’t know. But it’s coming in close to the bank. And moving fast…”

“There’s someone waving.”

Yes, I see that now. A figure in dark clothes on the top deck. And there’s another, on the back deck …

“Okay, that’s it.” She looks at me, then back at the river. The boat is travelling fast but still has some distance to cover. She turns back to me.

“Prism…”

She holds up her hand. “I have some things I need to say.” Her words are clipped, rushed. “One, I know there were security considerations, but you still have a serious problem with not running things by people beforehand.”

“Okay, I—”

“Two. Kieran…” She looks over her shoulder again, judges the amount of time she has. The boat is close now. She faces me again.

“Kieran, I love you, but I’m breaking up with you, and that would be happening even if all this wasn’t happening.” She raises her voice on the last few words, instinctively, as a sound threatens to drown them out. A sound from inside the building. A sound remarkably like pounding footsteps.

“Prism — go! I’ll go back in there — maybe I can distract them.”

“Kieran! Don’t do anything silly!”

She’s already climbing onto the balcony railing, and that’s the last I see of her before I rush inside, and I get just a glimpse of the face shields and bright lights and guns of K&O elite soldiers before something knocks me to the floor and—

And I hear bullets hitting glass, and an angry, deep, “Damn it!” and I can’t see anything, because my face is being pinned to the floor, but I know she’s made it, and I know, I just know, she looked beautiful as she did so. That every fraction of a second would have made a beautiful still from a vid. That as she jumped she was suspended in mid-air for a moment, like at the top of her leap in _The Istanbul Four_ …

And I know I’ll almost certainly never see her again, and as the carpet burns into my face and a knee digs into my back I realize that I can’t be at all sure of my career continuing, but it doesn’t matter, because at least I did something, and… this could have gone a lot worse. This could have gone a lot worse.

**Author's Note:**

> The name "Lowercase" is a reference to some snarkiness in this book review: http://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/reviews/review-the-bodyguards-princess-by-ann-mayburn/  
> (Warning for BDSM.)
> 
> There is otherwise no connection to the review. I just needed a name that I could be pretty sure wasn't actually being used by anybody.


End file.
